"Queen of Air and Darkness"

[browngirl]

Today is being a day. To make up for the fact that I'm likely not going to get to look at my flist today or tomorrow, have a beautiful poem of defiance and doom.

Her strong enchantments failing,
her towers of fear in wreck,
her limbecks dried of poisons
and the knife at her neck.

The Queen of air and darkness
begins to shrill and cry,
'O, young man, O my slayer,
to-morrow you shall die.'

O Queen of air and darkness,
I think 'tis truth you say,
and I shall die to-morrow;
but you will die to-day.
--A.E. Housman

Comments

[halleyscomet.livejournal.com]

This seems an appropriate response:

The Quitter

When you're lost in the Wild, and you're scared as a child,
And Death looks you bang in the eye,
And you're sore as a boil, it's according to Hoyle
To cock your revolver and . . . die.
But the Code of a Man says: "Fight all you can,"
And self-dissolution is barred.
In hunger and woe, oh, it's easy to blow . . .
It's the hell-served-for-breakfast that's hard.

"You're sick of the game!" Well, now, that's a shame.
You're young and you're brave and you're bright.
"You've had a raw deal!" I know -- but don't squeal,
Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight.
It's the plugging away that will win you the day,
So don't be a piker, old pard!
Just draw on your grit; it's so easy to quit:
It's the keeping-your-chin-up that's hard.

It's easy to cry that you're beaten -- and die;
It's easy to crawfish and crawl;
But to fight and to fight when hope's out of sight --
Why, that's the best game of them all!
And though you come out of each gruelling bout,
All broken and beaten and scarred,
Just have one more try -- it's dead easy to die,
It's the keeping-on-living that's hard.
Robert William Service

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

That was indeed the perfect response. Thank you. :)